This is the Disney Channel Original movie, Halloweentown, movie poster.

Halloweentown promotes finding yourself

By: Rana Rezk, Reporter

Marnie, Dylan, and Sophie Piper set out on their very first adventure! On Halloween, while Marnie is arguing with her mother Gwen, the kids’ grandmother Aggie comes to visit. Gwen lives in the mortal world after falling in love with a mortal. She doesn’t want tell her children about their witchy powers. Aggie wants to start Marnie’s witch training before her 13th birthday. If Aggie doesn’t Marnie will lose her powers forever and their families witch line would end. But there is another reason for Aggie’s visit, she feels something dark & evil is growing in Halloweentown & Aggie wants help to defeat it.

While Aggie & Gwen are arguing, Aggie uses magic which Marnie observes. After Aggie leaves to return to Halloweentown, Marnie, Dylan follow her onto the big flying bus. Unknown to Marnie and Dylan, Sophie also tags along . Soon afterwards, Gwen follows the children to Halloweentown. While there, Aggie & Gwen are attacked by the dark force in a movie theater. Marnie, Dylan & Sophie race to get the ingredients to activate Merlin’s Wand to stop the evil and save Halloweentown.

On Oct.17th, 1998 the Halloweentown premiered on Disney Channel. Filmed in Oregon the movie stars Kimberly J.Brown who plays Marnie Pipe. Debbie Reynolds who played Grandma Aggie. Joey Zimmerman plays Dylan Piper. Emily Roeske plays cute little adorable Sophie Piper. The town of Halloweentown has become a real place to visit in the town of St. Helens, Oregon. In fact, they have a month-long Spirit of Halloweentown event to celebrate the October holiday and allow fans of the movie to explore the town. They even try to recreate parts of the set, like the giant jack-o-lantern in the town square.

Duwayne Dunham directed Halloweentown. Paul Bernbaum, Jon Cooksey, and Ali Matheson wrote the script. Originally The film was suppose to be a $30 million film but after budget cuts they force to cut it down to $4 million budget. They began to cast their young stars and began filming the 24-day shoot the summer of 1998. They couldn’t afford hiring a lot of extras so they the extras were required to walk around in more than one costume to make it seem like the town was filmed with lots of townspeople.The movie actually spent a lot of money in order to build Benny the cab driver. One person worked his mouth and another worked his arms and hands depending on the scene.

With the movie filmed so quickly and with a small budget you can see lot of goofs within it. In the scene where the vampire gets her tooth pulled, you can clearly see the actors actual tooth painted black to look like a space. When Kalabar shields his eyes from the light when the kids are leaving the theater, actor Robin Thomas’ left wrist without makeup becomes visible. When they go back to the theater with the talisman you can see Grandma Aggie’s hand shaking while she is frozen and pointing. This one goof is on the writers, Marnie states that she is 13 years old. The plot revolves around Marnie needing to begin her witch training before the end of her 13th Halloween. However, if Marnie is 13 then the present date would be her 14th Halloween, and not her 13th as stated by Grandma Aggie. For a lot of the scenes you can tell no real magic involved due to the not so great special effects.

Don’t let these goofs discourage you. Halloweentown is a movie about finding yourself as someone so young. Its audience is mostly for preteens but those who had watched it the day it came out still love it till this day. It’s the perfect movie to sit and watch n a rainy day and on Halloween. It gets 4 out of 5 pumpkins in my book.